1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to messaging systems and, more particularly, to a system and method for coordinating messages across multiple systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many people today employ a variety of messaging systems of multiple types. For example, a user may have a plurality of e-mail accounts, and a plurality of voice mail accounts.
In the case of voice messaging systems, the user may have a work voice telephone number, a cellular telephone voice number and a home telephone voice number. The user may further have more than one work voice telephone number at more than one local and/or remote sites. Typically, each voice number is associated with a voice mailbox. A sender may leave a message at any of the user's mailboxes. The proliferation of various mailboxes at various sites permits the user to be reached at a variety of locations using local telephone calls. However, in order for the user to retrieve his messages, the user must access each of his mailboxes associated with each site. This can be both time-consuming and expensive, particularly since the user typically has no way of knowing whether a message is, in fact, waiting at any of the remote mailboxes.
Similarly, a user may have a plurality of different e-mail accounts. For example, the user may have e-mail at work at one site and e-mail at home. The user may also have an e-mail account at a remote site, for example, one associated with a remote office. Again, the user must access each account individually in order to retrieve all his messages and typically has no way of knowing when a message is pending at a remote location.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system and method whereby a user may access several of a plurality of messaging systems without having to manually access each and every one of his mailbox systems.